blogging from a new (old) PC

Automan21k

Shared on Sun, 08/22/2010 - 21:57

really it is recycling.....  My wife and I have a reputation for taking in old electronics, people just give the stuff to us because we are here all the time and the electronics recycling people are only around once every 2-3 months. Much of what we are given is ancient and my wife takes it appart to make jewlery, but sometimes we get some ok stuff.  People love to bring us hard drives because we take them appart to their base components and make sure that there will never be any usable info taken from them. After a week of scavenging parts from different PCs I have a working system, yes it is a frankenstine-like pile of parts shoved into a Dell Dimension 4400 case and hooked up to our 65" TV, but it works.  A Pentium 4 1.8ghz chip set, 750mb of ram, and a video card that I can't for the life of me identify.....but it works!!! 

 

next step will be a gradual upgrade into something a bit more useful, but as is, I think it will run WoW, it surfs the internet, and works with a moderate level of reliability (no blue screen of death yet) now I just need to find out a better way of handling the keyboard/mouse, because sitting i9n the dark, huddling over the coffee table typing is not doing my back or eyes any favors.

 

next step, salvaging a back lit, wireless keyboard and mouse.

 

I could just spend the money for a new PC, but seriously, where's the fun in that.

 

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Comments

TANK's picture
Submitted by TANK on Sun, 08/22/2010 - 22:06
:lol: I'm always scavenging junker PC's and Laptops. I use them for home automation. But the wife and I have pentium 4 vintage desktops as our primary, i've put new bits in to make them work well with windows 7 but they get the job done. And i bought a couple cheap used netbooks for hone automation stuff and to run my voip device for phone service rather than paying the telephone company for an analog line. My oldest laptop is a pentium 2 dell latitude laptop. It runs a webcam for security. Junkers still have plenty of life in them.
Automan21k's picture
Submitted by Automan21k on Sun, 08/22/2010 - 22:51
I think my next build will be a really old one, something old enough that I can play my old Xcom games on it. glad to hear that there are other scavengers out there.
redeye's picture
Submitted by redeye on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 00:32
I like your style. Bad news is: that PC you built will not run WOW very well unfortunately.
Automan21k's picture
Submitted by Automan21k on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 06:14
hmm...guess I need to give it a bit of a boost then. I know I need to find a graphics card, max out the ram and find a better processor, but until I get my laptop working for my wife to use, I've just been using it to play Black and White, Ultima Ascension and a few other games I bought but never got around to playing.
Anonymous's picture
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